Derived from an analysis, it was determined that the best way to light a cavity is through its front side, that is, it is best to align the luminous flux with the observer's view path. In this way, the beam of light in any given cavity whose access door contains translucent panels shall be lit from the front. With this in mind, several alternatives can be considered, such as placing light sources on the border of lateral, superior, inferior or all walls. Up to this point, this idea makes sense, the problem arises when said cavity is heated and the light sources are overheated and thus damaged. Another possibility could be to place the light source or bulb in any of the side or upper walls. This reduces usable space in the cavity, additionally creating a risk, as it is likely that the objects being placed in the cavity will knock against the bulb.
We can continue devising areas to place the light source or find references to previous art which are listed illustratively in order to establish where the state of technology currently lies in the field.
Michael E. Bales' U.S. Pat. No. 6,361,181 describes a household oven's cavity which is comprised of a particular bulb as its light source, which is lodged in the interior part of the window pack. Said window pack traditionally has a rectangular shape whose sides have some translucent material, preferably glass. Said window pack, among other functions, allows the user to view the oven cavity's interior in addition to isolating heat from the exterior, achieving this by trapping air between panels, sheets or laminates of translucent materials and the rectangular ring. In this way, said packet can lodge a socket assembly and bulb, as these are traditionally made of metal heat-fixed insulators, as well as glass among others. These materials are well known to resist high temperatures. Thus, all would point towards Bales' lighting system as being an effective one. This is partially true, as only a certain amount of lumens can be drawn from a bulb based on an incandescent filament, which causes part of the energy which it uses, to be transformed into heat, thus rendering it energy inefficient. Additionally, there is the problem of conducting the energy to the bulb's socket, which is carried out by means of electric conductors. These have to be specially tailored given the high temperatures which it must withstand, making the design more expensive. Additionally, said document describes said conductors as passing near to or on the sides of the hinges, creating a potential risk given that the electric conductors can be pinched, sheared or crunched by the hinges placing the operator at risk of electric shock, thus making this design far from acceptable.
Another effort is described in Gramlich et al's U.S. Pat. No. 7,157,667 which sets forth a better solution than the previous document, in which a light source is placed in the oven's lower area under the muffle, wherein the light source is placed at such an angle that its light is reflected to a mirror which in turn reflects the beam of light towards other mirrors. The disadvantage of this system is that the mentioned beam of light, in having to travel a considerable distance through air, can be altered due to differences in air density coupled to this system's assumption that the air circulating through the window is “clean”, that is, not containing fumes, smoke or particles, which allows light to be homogeneous or uniform during its path, scattering or dispersing said beam and losing light intensity on its path; as well as said mirrors needing maintenance because if they are not clean, they will be unable to reflect the beam of light incident upon them, causing a significant decrease in the amount of reflected lumens.
Therefore, the present invention serves as a means to greatly alleviate the above mentioned inconveniences as well as others to be described later, these being the objective of the present invention.